


Harbinger

by Fudgyokra



Category: Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bad Parenting, Brotherly Bonding, Childhood Memories, Family Drama, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 17:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15645507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: There was no more paternal fondness left in him tonight. Perhaps there never would be again.





	Harbinger

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of the new RHatO...which I haven't read. And probably won't read. Despite what this fic may tell you, I love Bruce dearly, but I'm hopping on the bandwagon and dumping on him as much as possible for the sake of angst, lol. This was written and edited pretty quickly, so sorry for any mistakes! I just wanted to get something out to heal my writer's block, which seems to be constant these days.

"I do not see why you don't at least  _try_  to keep your nose clean."

The voice was soft in spite of the judgement in it. Jason thought that if it were any softer, it might get swept off with the wind.  _Christ,_  it was windy. He hated it. Hated how it blew his cigarette smoke all over the place, and how it wanted to steal away Damian's words, even if Jason didn't particularly want to hear them.

"Why are you here, kid?" he asked, not because he didn't know, but because he liked the way Damian rolled his eyes and talked to him like he was an idiot. It was almost funny, in a weird way.

"To relay a message at the behest of my—of  _our_  father, obviously." Damian's frown deepened almost imperceptibly at what he knew to be a particularly untimely fumble, but Jason didn't have it in him right then to tell him he would've been right the first time. In fact, he didn't have the energy to say half of the things he wanted; things like, "He relayed the message well enough the other night. Or can't you see my black eye past the edge of this mask?"

The silence that followed was long and tense, but Damian was patient. He stood there on the roof, cape billowing like a damned black curtain in a light summer breeze. Jason recalled, for a flash of a second, the flaps of a circus tent shivering, lending a peek of the foggy Gotham night outside. He knew the memory like the back of his hand, and not just because it replayed in his head every time he felt hopeless, which was fairly often lately.

He must have smiled at the flashback, though, because he saw Damian's mask lift with the movement of his brows. Jason wasn't foolish enough to think the boy's crossed arms were posed like they were to keep out the windchill.

"Eh," he offered, trying to sound noncommittal, "don't feel sorry for me." He stood from where he'd been crouched on the ledge, stamped out his cigarette with one foot, and started talking again before Damian could drum up a predictable lie about how he  _didn't_  care so he could save his reputation from Jason's pity-laundering, or whatever it was Damian would have called it to save his own tail. Like father like son. "I've never been his favorite, but he'll budge eventually."

Despite his confident tone, he didn't really know that for sure, and, from the look of Damian's wrinkled-nose-pursed-lips combo, they're on the same page about that. To Jason's surprise, though, that isn't what Damian's anger-spiked tongue snaps at. "Don't be ridiculous, Todd," he said as he moved his hands to his hips, enhancing the petulance and bringing at least a little bit of normalcy to their encounter. "Father has never picked favorites among us."

Normalcy, as Jason had come to understand it, was simply not in his cosmic destiny. Slowly, he took a breath. Held it for a moment. Let it go in a soft whoosh to be properly whisked off by the wind. "Kid," he said, even though he knew Damian hated being called that, "I didn't wanna be the one to tell you, but your dad—"

"He is  _our_  father," asserted Damian once again, louder this time. Jason knew it wasn't really anger fueling him, but hurt, and he also knew that it came from a place of fear—one that Jason kept falling victim to, even after a lifetime of having it realized, again and again. Being cast out. Being severed from the life you want, the people you love.

"Right," he murmured absently. "Our..."

Once more, he was struck by the image of billowing tent flaps, leading to a hay-covered area of concrete—all for the ambiance that, in the end, didn't matter at all when Jason first laid eyes on  _him_. A brilliant flash of blue and black soaring above, catching the spotlights and the transfixed eyes of the circus's audience in equal amounts.

Jason grit his teeth to pull himself back to the present. "Everyone plays favorites, all right? It's just a fact of life."

He hadn't meant for his own voice to rise, but his resolve not to think of the past and all its heroes was butting heads with his resolve not to think of the present and all its enemies. In his mind's eye, he saw his hopeless, eight-year-old self, and the way he looked at perfect, ten-year-old Dick Grayson. He saw his mother, midnight blue, deep purple, eye swollen. Smiling, holding his shoulders. He remembered asking her if she and daddy were in love, remembered, "Oh, baby, we used to be—"

For a second, Damian looked concerned, but amended his features before Jason could even realize his own breath had hitched (likely audibly) in his throat. The Gotham wind whipped the silence around like an invisible rag doll. And then, a secret: "When I became Robin, Batman told me to dye my hair so I'd look the part."

Yes, Jason remembered the way Bruce ran an idle hand over his strawberry blond curls, looking deep in thought.

 _"But I_ am _Robin," he protested with all the whining melodrama of the young teenager he was. "I have my own costume and everything!"_

_"It was Dick's old costume," Bruce corrected him sagely. "And you know what I mean. I need you to look more like him."_

_Jason knew it was to make criminals think he was the original. Knew it was to cover up his inexperience. He knew, but he watched the black-tinged water swirl down the drain until it ran clear before he dared to look at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. When he did, he saw a near-spitting image of a young Dick. He was a little older than the other boy had been when he was first Robin, a little sharper in the face, with different eyes, but when he put on the mask none of it would matter. For all intents and purposes, Batman had his perfect Boy Wonder back again._

_And Jason had been proud to mimic his hero._

"Todd.  _Todd_ , listen to me, damn it."

Jason blinked, looked down at Damian, whose face was pulled into a frustrated snarl. "You started telling me some insipid fact about Father and then dozed off before—"

"Just tell me what it is he sent you to say," Jason suddenly snapped. There was no more paternal fondness left in him tonight. Perhaps there never would be again. Bruce would deserve it.

Damian huffed, crossed his arms again, looked out over the city instead of at Jason. "He said he would like to have a civil discussion about the place you occupy in this city."

Jason thought about how he could still taste blood in the back of his throat and did not respond.

"...He wants Nightwing to mitigate this time," Damian added, a tad uncertainly.

Jason pictured Dick's face, then Bruce's hand resting on the back of his neck affectionately. He imagined Dick assuring him that Bruce was sorry, that it wouldn't happen like that again, not if he could help it. He might have had the power to make that come true, but Jason couldn't figure out which would be worse: That he did, or that he didn't.

Finally, Damian had to hold his worried expression throughout his next words, which were quieter incarnations of the same thing he'd said before, even if this time they sounded as though they might contain a bit of doubt. "Father does not have a favorite."

Right as he said it, they both saw a tall, shadowy form grapple to the far end of the rooftop across from them. Speak of the devil, Jason thought. Batman reached out his hand to help Nightwing stand alongside him, and when he succeeded, the hand traveled up to the man's shoulder and remained there until his eyes fell squarely on Jason, where he allowed it to fall away.

"Yeah, kid," Jason said without looking at Damian, at the way he chewed his lip, "you keep telling yourself that, and maybe one day it'll be true."


End file.
